If You Just Walked Away
by Kolie
Summary: It isn't a pretty story, nor is it a happy one, but it's one that needs to be told... Eiri shares the biggest mistake of his life with the one person he never thought he would be able to trust. [Inspired by Everything Changes by Staind]


Hiyo…this fic was inspired by the song "Everything Changes" by Staind. If you've never heard it or seen the lyrics, I recommend that you at least read the lyrics. It's a very pretty song…

And before you start and get confused...parts of this are written in second person POV while others are written in first person POV. It's supposed to be like that... And I wrote this about a year ago, so I apologize if it sucks ass. I like it for some reason, though...hm...

WARNINGS: Uh…I'm not sure since it's been a while since I've really read this…probably just some naughty language and the like…

**Disclaimer: **_Gravitation_ and its characters belong to Maki Murakami…

**If You Just Walked Away…**

I walk into your office and watch as you pull your glasses from your nose. You greet me with a smile and ask if I would please sit down, as you always do because it's your job. I've had this nagging question in the back of my mind for years, ever since I was made to begin seeing one of "you". If you weren't paid to sit and listen to me pour out my soul, would you still do it? Or would you leave me alone and in the dark? That always bothers me and I want to know the answers more than anything, but for some reason I've never been able to ask the questions.

I take a seat in the cream-colored leather chair across from you, as I always do, and hand you my weekly "pre-appointment evaluation form" when you ask for it. I watch as you skim through it, reading all of the important things and jotting some notes down on the back of the form.

When you turn and smile at me, I can't help but scowl. Today is the day that you've requested that I begin telling you one of the worst mistakes of my life. I'm not prepared for it, but I guess it's better that I tell it sooner more than later.

With a nod, you signal for me to begin. I nod in return and take a moment to pause and think before opening my mouth.

I begin with the most overused cliché in the book…

"I remember that day as if it were yesterday…"

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

I stared with terror filled eyes as I watched the pink-haired baka that I had grown to love stomp out of the living room with tears in his eyes. I had done it again. I had broken him and there was nothing that I could do to fix it this time. I knew that there wasn't.

Not even bothering to hide the fear and sadness in my eyes I followed Shuichi into the bedroom and watched—speechless—as he threw random clothing into a bag as he had done countless times before in the past. Although I knew that he was trying his hardest to hide them, small sobs slipped past his lips and soon he collapsed into a broken pile on the floor.

Almost immediately I rushed to his side but when I reached down to comfort him he shoved me away.

"Don't touch me!" he yelled.

"But, Shu-"

"I don't want to hear it, Eiri. Every time you hurt me you throw some false hope into my face and make me stay with you. I'm not going to listen to you this time!" he yelled.

Dumbstruck, I slipped away from him and slid down the wall behind me, my head in my hands. I didn't dare look up when he finally stood up from the floor. I heard him zip up the bag and throw it over his shoulder. A little while later, the last sound I heard was the front door slamming behind him.

Now I was the broken mess on the bedroom floor. I knew that the tears were coming before I even felt them, but did nothing to stem their flow. I sobbed. And sobbed. And sobbed. I didn't care who heard me. All I wanted was to be able to go back in time and take back the harsh things that I had said to Shuichi. Hell, at the moment I didn't even remember what I had said to him to upset him so badly.

In a desperate attempt to try and run away from reality, I stood from my position on the floor and curled up into the bed next to me. I pulled the blankets up over my head and curled by body into the fetal position, succumbing to the darkness in my heart that I knew had never left me.

When the next morning came I awoke slowly and stretched an arm over to the left side of the bed. My eyes snapped open when I realized that nothing was there and memories of the night before flooded my mind. Almost immediately I broke down into tears and grabbed and the blankets to pull them back over my head, but something kept them from moving. When I sat up to see who it was, I just wanted to die.

Who else but Tatsuha was standing at the end of my bed, the bottom of my comforter curled up on a fist? He quietly stared at me with a smirk on his face. Without even saying anything, I already knew that he knew.

"What do you want, Tatsuha?" I growled and slumped back into the bed.

My younger ebony-haired "twin" didn't say anything, but I felt his eyes boring into me. I tossed and turned, trying to dismiss the feeling of his heated glare, but he moved wherever I moved. Finally, in a desperate attempt to make him go away, I shot up in the bed and gave him a death glare.

"If you didn't come here for a reason, why don't you just leave?" I spat. "I'm really not in the mood to put up with you right now."

He just smirked at me and pulled a white envelope out of his pocket.

"I just thought that this might interest you, Bro," he said and quietly left my bedroom. But he didn't leave the apartment. I heard him slump down into the couch.

With a furrowed brow I gazed down upon the envelope and instantly recognized the chicken-scratch that spelled out my name. It was from him. Shuichi had left me a note.

My hands shook as I slowly tore the envelope open, terrified at what I might find on the inside. All it was was just what I had thought it had been. A note, carefully folded three times before he stuck it into the envelope. My hands were still shaking when I shook the paper open.

_Dear Eiri,_

_I know that I said some harsh things to you, but you said some harsh things to me as well. I love you so much, but I hate myself for that love. I can't stand living with and loving a person who constantly chews me up just to spit me back out again. I've dealt with it for too long and it's tearing me apart, piece by piece._

_You probably wouldn't even believe me if I told you that I had been planning on leaving you anyway. I thought that you could change like everything else does, but you seem to defy the natural laws of the human world. Through the years you've remained the heartless man that I thought I fell in love with all those years ago. I thought, no prayed, that I would be the one soul who would be able to change and you help you love someone else besides a spirit, but it seems that my prayers went unanswered._

_I'm not sorry for leaving and I'm not sorry about the things that I said because what I said was true. Every time you got mad at me or threw me out, I would always run back into your arms. And you _would _give me words of false hope and love. I was a fool to believe it, but I did and stayed. But, overtime I began to realize that your worlds started to sound like a broken record. Always the same thing, over and over again… I just couldn't take it anymore…_

_So, I left. I'm not going to tell you where I'm going because I don't even know that. When I find a place to live and stay that is where I'll stay. Don't expect me to come back this time because you'll just be giving yourself false hope this time._

_All my love,  
Shuichi_

By the time I finished reading his letter, tears were pouring down my face. I set the piece of paper aside and collapsed, sobbing unashamedly into my pillow. Everything that I had come to cherish was now gone, and it was all my fault. It wasn't as if someone had just come along and stolen him from me. I chased him away and there was no chance that I was ever going to get him back.

Even over my tears I heard the front door close as Tatsuha finally left. But I didn't care. The only difference was that I was truly alone and my heart was beginning to freeze all over again…

We end this week's visit with that minor cliffhanger. I don't want to leave because I know that it will be even more difficult for me to pick up with it next week, but I know that I have to. You have other patients to see after all, and my problems are only a small part of your day.

With a small smile you say that you would like to see me in three days instead of a week. I furrow my brow slightly at that comment but know that you know that it's what's best for me. I slip the note I had read you back into my pocket and take my receipt and the offered hand to shake. I nod in thanks and leave your office.

When I come back three days later, it's hard for me to walk into the building, let alone your office. But I know that, even though things have changed, I need to tell you my story or I'll never be able to let it go. I'll always feel that extreme amount of guilt. I know as well as you know that it's that guilt that keeps pulling me back into the darkness.

This day's appointment begins as the last one did, as well as all of the appointments before that. I walk into your office, you tell me to sit, I sit, you examine my "pre-appointment evaluation form", and then jot some notes down. Blah, blah, blah. It's always the same routine and I just sit back and watch and wait until you ask me to begin.

When you do just that I feel my entire body stiffen as the memories come flooding back. It's not as difficult as I thought it would be to remember this time, and I can start as if I had never quit…

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A week slowly passed, then two… And those two weeks slowly turned into a month. I was lost and I was broken. I felt as if my heart had been torn from my body and stomped on by someone's foot, but they didn't bother to replace it. They carried it off in the palm of their hand, never for me to see again.

I knew that my mind was beginning to deteriorate before anyone else did. I never left my house and fell in love with the dark. I would sit on the floor in the corner of my room for hours on end, just mumbling to myself. I spoke soft words of love to some invisible force.

Later on, Mika told me that I was speaking to Shuichi, but I'm still not sure who I was talking to. As I sit here telling you this, I can say that I barely even remember my life for the first few months after he left. It's all just a dark abyss of nothingness in the back of my mind that stings and burns me every time I choose to try and remember that time. It's my own personal Hell. I try to avoid it, but sometimes it takes over and possesses my body, twisting it and turning it and maiming it, forcing me to act out its own sick fantasies.

After awhile I was physically, mentally, socially, and emotionally unable to live on my own anymore, and I was forced to move in with Mika and Touma. But even then I did the same thing. I sat on the floor in the corner of my room and talked to the apparition of my pink-haired love that seemed to invisible to everyone else.

This is around the time that my mind begins to clear a little bit. My memories are still foggy, but I can see shapes and hear voices and recall some things that happened with a small touch of clarity. If Mika or Touma are with me, they help me to remember and fill in the blank holes that my mind has left me with.

I remember sitting in my room and thinking over many things. I think I thought my life over completely. By this time my memories had slowly returned and I was becoming a little more normal every day. I remember just sitting there and thinking about how everything changes.

Places change and grow or shrink or just disappear beneath the sea, as Atlantis did. But the sea didn't just have to be a sea of water. A place full of people could drown beneath the tears of just one small, insignificant person and they wouldn't even realize it until maybe it was too late. The person could commit suicide, as I had almost done on more than on occasion, or they could commit murder, as I _had_ once done.

Even things change. Trees grow from weak little saplings to intimidating towers. They always fill with leaves in the springtime but then loose them once it grows closer to the end of fall and beginning of winter. They're cut down, burned down…they just fall over. It seems as if they could live from the beginning to the end of time. But, just as humans, they are born and they ultimately die.

Times change. If one was immortal and had lived thousands of years, they would have been able to sit back and watch the passage of time. Quietly, they could watch Adam and Eve from outside the gates to the Garden of Eden, and then cower in fear as they heard God's wrath after discovering that his two creations had ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. They could watch as the Egyptians built the pyramids. See the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Witness the discovery of a New World and board one of the first ships to sail to it. They could experience the wars that broke out across the country known as America. They would see the change from horses, to horses and wagons, to ships, to trains, to cars, to planes, to space shuttles. The discovery of electricity. They would witness things that a mere mortal could only imagine.

But people are the one things that sometimes refuse to change. They fight the ticking hands of time with all their might and long to live in the past and keep their ways the same. They're afraid of what would happen if someone came along and attempted to change them. They seal their hearts and mind from those who care about them and walk the Earth alone, until they are confronted by the most stubborn person who walks the face of the Earth. That person goes to the ends of the world to force their way into the other's heart and mind and discover just what it was that made _them_ tick.

Then everything would work as it was supposed to. They would change and become a better person and love the person who they had once hated for bringing this change upon them. They would open their eyes and see the world in a new light and discover that it was futile to try and go through life alone.

Is that why I had always been so cold to Shuichi? I still don't know the answer to that question. All I wanted to do was repent for my sins and for hurting him and try and get him back. I didn't want to be alone anymore and I knew that no one would ever be able to replace him in my life.

For an entire month, I think that I did more thinking than I had done in my entire lifetime. I rethought everything. I thought about my childhood. I thought about Yuki. I thought about how much happier everyone would have been if I had managed to put the gun to my head and pull the trigger before Touma had found me. I thought about when I returned to Japan. I thought about the passage of time when my heart grew cold and sealed itself away. I thought about the first book that I had ever published and how ironic it was that I had decided to write romance novels. I thought about the night that I had met Shuichi in the park. I thought about our first night together. I thought about his stubbornness and my unending coldness toward him. I thought about how sorry I was and how badly I wished I could go back in time and just take everything that I ever said back.

You see, I never said those things to chase him away. I said harsh things to him to see if our relationship actually was real. I thought that I was just living in a dream. But whenever he stayed it proved to me that it was real. Over time, however, it would go back to feeling like that dream again and I would throw those words in his face. I appreciated the way that he always tolerated my words, but most of the time, like I said, I created that frustration in him so I would know how he felt about me.

I was just a cold, heartless bastard that took everything for granted.

It was almost a year before I saw Shuichi again, and that happened by a complete accident. Mika had decided to force me out of the house by taking me grocery shopping with her. Somewhere between the bread and produce I thought I saw a small flash of pink-hair turn around the corner ahead of us. I _know_ that I felt Mika stiffen beside me when I saw it, but she denied ever seeing it when I confronted her about it.

The next time that I saw him came as a complete and utter surprise. I don't know who set it up or why, but if I did I would never be able to stop thanking them.

One day in November, Mika called me downstairs for dinner. But, before I was able to enter the dining room, she told me that I had a visitor waiting to speak with me in the parlor. I sighed and told her that I _really_ didn't want to talk to anyone at the moment, I'd rather eat, but she wouldn't allow it. She forced me into the parlor and closed the door behind me. I think I even remember hearing a little click as she locked it, but I'm not quite sure.

Sitting on the couch in front of a blazing fire was someone with short, disheveled dirty blonde hair. I furrowed my brows in question, but some force pulled me toward the person. Whether it was gravity or my own curiosity, I don't know, but I'm glad that whatever it had been had done it.

I recognized the profile almost immediately when I turned around the corner of the couch, and when those amethyst eyes turned on me, I felt my heat melt. He was there, sitting on the couch in the middle of Mika and Touma's house. But had he actually been there to see me? I'm still not sure but he showed no signs of joy or disgust whenever he acknowledged my presence.

"Hi," I said, trying my hardest to keep a halfhearted smile on my face.

He smiled weakly and turned his eyes back onto the depths of the hearth. I took a seat beside him on the couch, not too close but not too far away, and took the opportunity to gaze at the side of his face. He hadn't changed a bit since he'd left, besides his hair color, of course, but I guessed that it was most likely just its natural color.

He sighed heavily and turned his back onto me. A sort of sadness gleamed in the depths of those amethyst pools that I'd begun to drown in once I was in them, but I wasn't sure why. To this day he still refuses to answer me whenever I ask him about it, but I guess that must be for the best if he still won't tell me.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, tears welling up in those orbs.

I furrowed my brow and watched in sadness as he broke down into tears, cradling his face in his hands as his body shook in vicious sobs. I couldn't stop myself. I reached out and drew Shuichi into my arms and let him cry into my chest, not failing to notice the way that he seemed to melt into my embrace. I sighed and buried my face in his hair, inhaling the exotic and intoxicating scent that was his shampoo. I didn't dare try to risk speaking until he had calmed to a coherent level of thought.

"What are you sorry for, Shu?" I muttered into his hair.

"I never should have acted like I did," he sniffed. "It was wrong of me."

My heart broke in two to hear him say these things. He blamed everything that had happened on himself when it had indeed been mine. He had no reason to be sitting here, no reason to have even come to this place to see me, but he had.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Shuichi. I'm the one that's sorry for everything. I never should have treated you like I did, never should have talked to you like I did. It was wrong in so many ways and I'm sorry."

I felt the warm tears seep through the material of my shirt as he broke down into tears again. I rubbed his back gently and ran my fingers through his hair in rough attempts to get him calm down. Surprisingly, they helped and he pulled away from me a few moments later. Before I knew what he was going to do next, he boosted himself up on a knee and latched his lips to mine.

I melted immediately. Just having him there and being allowed to hold him had been a dream come true, but now he was kissing me. My mind went blank. I sunk down into the couch and he swung a leg over both of mine, straddling my lap and deepening the kiss by teasing my tongue into his mouth. I tasted every last inch of his cavern, my tongue battling fiercely with his for dominance and winning out as it always had in the past.

When he pulled away to breathe, I was surprised to see the small smile on his face. He ran his fingers through my hair, let them trail down the back of my neck and around to my collarbone, ran them down my chest, and then he cupped my face in his hands, locking my eyes on his.

"I love you," I whispered, smiling sheepishly as his eyes widened in surprise.

"Wh-what?"

"I love you, Shuichi Shindou, and I don't want to go another day without you in my life," I said and drew him to me for another kiss. His eyes searched mine thoroughly when we pulled apart, and whether he found what he was looking for or not, he smiled at me.

"I love you too," he whispered.

I know that it may sound crazy and strange to you, but we made love there on the couch, confessing our love to each other over and over again until the moans overtook us and left our minds completely unable of thought. When we were done, we laid sated in each others arms, a blanket draped over our bodies, and let sleep take us into its black depths.

I woke to him kissing trails down my jaw to my collarbone and back again. He squeaked when I pulled him up to me and pressed my lips against his, but put more passion into the kiss than he had ever given. We were both breathless when we pulled apart and we smiled at each other.

"Does this mean that you'll give me another chance?" I asked him, running a hand gently through his hair.

He nodded and kissed me once on the forehead. "Yes, as long as you're willing to give me another one as well."

I nodded fiercely and pulled him into a hug. We got up, dressed, and beat on the still closed doors to the parlor until Mika let us out. I think that she may have come in to check on us and seen us together in our sleep because she couldn't hide the blush or smile from her face as we exited. I had my arm wrapped around him securely and he had himself pressed as far into my side as he could without having to forgo walking.

With a doctor's agreement, I was able to move back into my apartment in Tokyo. Shuichi wanted to move in with me immediately, but I wouldn't let him. I know that my decision hurt him, but it wasn't as if I didn't _want_ him to move in with me. I just knew that we needed some time to actually get to know each other.

So, we started dating. We went anywhere I could think to take him, unashamed and willing to proclaim our relationship to the world. What others thought of us wasn't of our concern. We were happy, and that was all that mattered.

After a few months or so of dating, I finally agreed to let him move in with me. He settled in almost immediately. Although I had acted like a human being during our dates, I still saw the surprise that flashed across his face the first time I let him sleep in my bed the entire night, our bodies twined together within the sheets. But it wasn't a bad surprise. I think that it was more of an "it's about time" surprise than anything.

And that's how it ends. I know that it may seem unfinished but you asked to me tell you about the worst mistake of my life, and that's all I'll tell. It's been two years since our reunion and we've stayed at each other's side ever since.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

When I finish my long tale, you smile at me and immediately thank me. I wonder why because I apparently went over our time limit by at least half an hour, but you don't say anything about that. When I ask, you say that it was because you requested that we have a longer appointment than normal so I can get all of my pent up emotions out. I thank you immensely for this.

You talk to me for a while after I'm finished, asking me questions and sitting in a thoughtful silence as you analyze them in your mind. When I interrupt our silence with the question I've been dying to ask, you look at me in a perplexed sort of way and then smile. I don't like that smile, but I guess that a smile is better than a frown. With a slight nod, you tell me yes, that you would listen to my problems even if you weren't paid to. You say that we don't pay you when we call you when we have a problem that can't wait until our next appointment. You even tell me that you're not being paid for the extra hour that you set aside for us to talk.

I smile and thank you even more for this. I am in your debt until the day that I die, whether I want to be or not.

We sit and talk for the rest of our fifteen minutes time and then we part ways like we always do. I shake your hand and take the receipt that you hand me and thank you one more time before going downstairs to pay for my visit. I give them fifty dollars extra and tell them to give it to you when they try to give me back my change. They look at me strangely, but I just smile and walk out the door.

Shuichi is waiting for in the waiting room, curled up in a chair and reading a magazine about something or another that he'd brought with him. He smiles at me when he sees that I've finally left and bounces up from the chair, latching onto my arm.

It starts to snow lightly when were on our way to the car. To get there we have to walk through a small park. Shuichi squeaks quietly when I pull him from the path and onto the grass, over to a small group of trees where we can be sheltered from the snow. I take his lips in a kiss and hold him close to me. He smiles and chuckles quietly as he always does when we pull apart and a small cloud of condensation forms in the air. I take him in another hug and rest my head on his shoulder, so that my mouth is next to his ear.

"We've made it through the toughest part of the day, you know?" I whisper. "And now it's just me and you, forever."

He nods and smiles at me. I take his hand in mine and pull him back onto the concrete path through the park and head for the car. He climbs in when we get there and curls up next to me when I climb behind the wheel, snuggling for warmth and just for the sake of snuggling, and I wrap an arm around his shoulders.

The return drive to our apartment is a fairly long one, but it gives me time to think. What would I do if something else managed to tear us apart? What would I say and would it matter? Probably not, but I'm going to make sure that I won't have to try it out and see for myself.

-END-  
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Hehe...I know that the free hour thing is completely unbelieveable... I wish I could have a free extra hour tacked on to my sessions sometimes. Hehe... Other than that little fact, I hope you all enjoyed... Sorry for any typos!...

Shank you and please review if you have the time...


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